How can I increase torrent upload speed?

New Member

I'm using utorrent, and if I download a fairly popular file with lots of seeders I can usually get 100-200kB/s download. However, my uploading to other users is really slow. I've never seen a sustained upload rate of more than 4kB/s for a single file, and I rarely break 10kB/s for all of my uploads combined. I probably average about 0.5kB/s uploading.

Is this a port or firewall problem of some sort, or do I just have a bad internet connection? Anything I can do to help fix it?

make sure you have port forwarding on port 6881 AND make sure utorrent in its preferences is set to 6881 and randomize the port each time is unchecked. also, make sure that for your linux distros of course, you update the tracker list to get more peers, you can also try force starting it. also what i think really helps is to start with your upload rate uncapped, and then cap it when the uncapped rate brings you many peers, also on that topic, increase your upload slots and max connections per torrent values in the preferences..

There is an option in utorrent to select you upload speed. Depending on your connection, you should limit it, as it will inhibit dl speeds and internet speed if you let it run amock. If you are not consistently hitting your max upload speed, chances are your ISP provider is interfering, especially if it there is a lot of variation.

New Member

How do I forward a port? Before, I was using some randomly assigned port, and utorrent said it was forwarded properly. Changing to 6881, it says that it's not properly forwarded, and I'm unsure of how to do it.

I'm using Cogeco as my ISP. According to this, Cogeco limits bittorrent bandwidth and prevents seeding. Is this going to have a major effect on the effectiveness of my torrent clients?

Most likely you have a dynamic IP address (assuming you have a router), which you will need to make static before you can setup a port. That link I gave you has instructions somewhere around there for doing this. Its different for each router, but use that link and google to get you going.

And that will have a decent effect on your bandwidth, downloads and uploads. I would say try to switch ISPs if you want to torrent.

Here's another guide for setting up a static IP. After thats done its just a matter of opening the port on your router. That will make it faster for sure, but you will have problems w/ that ISP. Lastly the port does not need to be any number, you can enter whatever # you want. Just make sure it is the same on your router and utorrent.

New Member

I just changed the settings so that utorrent encrypts the data, and this seems to have had the best effect so far. I'm currently sustaining >50kb/s right now so that's quite an improvement. Thanks guys.

If your using XP I know a way to get your full download potential on utorrent 1.7. First off download this and run it ~~ http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads . Windows security will ask you if your sure you want to do this select do it or apply dont remember how it words it. What it does is alows you to download on 50 clients in windows xp instead of 10, all you have to do if you ever have a problem with it is rerun it and set it back to 10. Next you need to run the utorrent again and go into options and preferences and click on the advanced then it will show a list of things you can change, scroll down to net.max_halfopen and click it, on the bottom where is says set change the 8 to 100 and click set. You will notice a big difference. ALLEN

If your using XP I know a way to get your full download potential on utorrent 1.7. First off download this and run it ~~ http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads . Windows security will ask you if your sure you want to do this select do it or apply dont remember how it words it. What it does is alows you to download on 50 clients in windows xp instead of 10, all you have to do if you ever have a problem with it is rerun it and set it back to 10. Next you need to run the utorrent again and go into options and preferences and click on the advanced then it will show a list of things you can change, scroll down to net.max_halfopen and click it, on the bottom where is says set change the 8 to 100 and click set. You will notice a big difference. ALLEN

cant get it to work in vista thats why I sold both 32bit and 64bit versions I won. There are some people working on it but you know how vista is. If I get any info on it working with vista ill post back. I keep a 700-1100kb/s all the time with this once it gets connected good and their are alot of seeders and leachers, another thing I forgot to mention is to put 0s in the upload and download speeds or UNLIMITED- with ut1.7 if your upload is set low your downloads will be low. Another thing if your on a router I suggest you bypass it and hook directly to your computer from the cable modem. Its gonna make other computers on your network useless anyways and will go faster. and if you go back into preferences again and this time click the + by advanced and disk cache I always put a check in the override disk cache and make it 128 megs. ALLEN

cant get it to work in vista thats why I sold both 32bit and 64bit versions I won. There are some people working on it but you know how vista is. If I get any info on it working with vista ill post back. I keep a 700-1100kb/s all the time with this once it gets connected good and their are alot of seeders and leachers, another thing I forgot to mention is to put 0s in the upload and download speeds or UNLIMITED- with ut1.7 if your upload is set low your downloads will be low. Another thing if your on a router I suggest you bypass it and hook directly to your computer from the cable modem. Its gonna make other computers on your network useless anyways and will go faster. and if you go back into preferences again and this time click the + by advanced and disk cache I always put a check in the override disk cache and make it 128 megs. ALLEN

Utorrent only makes other computers useless at the wrong settings. If everything is set-up appropriately, nothing is gained from directly plugging in, and no other computers are slowed down from very fast download speeds. This right here is the guide to follow. Uploads being low do not make downloads slow. In fact, the exact opposite is true. If too much of your bandwith is going to that, your dl will crawl.

The half-open thing will work, however, you don't need those connections for speed, its inefficient. I also believe I saw somewhere this makes it easier for spyware and such to sneak in undetected. I have only 5 half open connections, download at 400kb/s or so, upload at 30kb/s constantly, and have absolutely no internet slowdown on any of the 5 computers in the house while doing so, on a xx/384k connection. Just gotta tweak the settings.

Utorrent only makes other computers useless at the wrong settings. If everything is set-up appropriately, nothing is gained from directly plugging in, and no other computers are slowed down from very fast download speeds. This right here is the guide to follow. Uploads being low do not make downloads slow. In fact, the exact opposite is true. If too much of your bandwith is going to that, your dl will crawl.

The half-open thing will work, however, you don't need those connections for speed, its inefficient. I also believe I saw somewhere this makes it easier for spyware and such to sneak in undetected. I have only 5 half open connections, download at 400kb/s or so, upload at 30kb/s constantly, and have absolutely no internet slowdown on any of the 5 computers in the house while doing so, on a xx/384k connection. Just gotta tweak the settings.

it varies between systems. Vista ultimate can take 25 half open connections a second, yet with utorrent set to use 5, using MSN and firefox at the same time triggers the connection limit and everything slows to a crawl for 10 minutes or so.

Too high an upload prevents you from downloading at a full speed.
Too low a download speed, gets you ignored by peers (may torrent clients send to people with faster uploads first) (and utorrent blocks you if its set below 6KB/s i think)

it varies between systems. Vista ultimate can take 25 half open connections a second, yet with utorrent set to use 5, using MSN and firefox at the same time triggers the connection limit and everything slows to a crawl for 10 minutes or so.

Too high an upload prevents you from downloading at a full speed.
Too low a download speed, gets you ignored by peers (may torrent clients send to people with faster uploads first) (and utorrent blocks you if its set below 6KB/s i think)

The limit does indeed vary between os. I'm not sure what you mean w/ that second sentence, I just said I set the limit to 5 (it defaults at 10) and experience absolutely no slowdown in any internet activity (including firefox and msn). If you set your upload speed lower than 5kb/s for too long, utorrent will automatically begin to limit your download speed. Generally you should set your upload speed about 80% or so of your maximum available upload speed.

Basically, there are almost no situations I've encountered that require me to exceed the half-open connection limit. The correct settings vary by system, but unlimiting half-open connections is not the best idea imo.

The limit does indeed vary between os. I'm not sure what you mean w/ that second sentence, I just said I set the limit to 5 (it defaults at 10) and experience absolutely no slowdown in any internet activity (including firefox and msn). If you set your upload speed lower than 5kb/s for too long, utorrent will automatically begin to limit your download speed. Generally you should set your upload speed about 80% or so of your maximum available upload speed.

Basically, there are almost no situations I've encountered that require me to exceed the half-open connection limit. The correct settings vary by system, but unlimiting half-open connections is not the best idea imo.

im talkin about connections in the first part and KB/s in the second. Utorrent actually blocks you from downloading, if you set your upload below a certain level - its 5 or 6KB/s.
Some programs (other than utorrent) will only upload to people with high upload speeds in the swarm - it gives them priority under the assumption they can share it faster with everyone else.

I find a good rule that works is to test your upload speed, set your utorrent setting to around 70% of that maximum, lower half open connections to around 4... and download popular stuff cause it goes quicker!

Utorrent only makes other computers useless at the wrong settings. If everything is set-up appropriately, nothing is gained from directly plugging in, and no other computers are slowed down from very fast download speeds. This right here is the guide to follow. Uploads being low do not make downloads slow. In fact, the exact opposite is true. If too much of your bandwith is going to that, your dl will crawl.

The half-open thing will work, however, you don't need those connections for speed, its inefficient. I also believe I saw somewhere this makes it easier for spyware and such to sneak in undetected. I have only 5 half open connections, download at 400kb/s or so, upload at 30kb/s constantly, and have absolutely no internet slowdown on any of the 5 computers in the house while doing so, on a xx/384k connection. Just gotta tweak the settings.

I can tell you this much, last saturday night I opened utorrent @ 1030 pm to get some movies ive been wanting , seen some others that looked good and started it up, sunday when I got up @ 6am I had 31 movies.

Ive tried everything you can think of from static ip to reducing dl and ul settings, the only setting I can make the connection work over 400mb/s is the one I have anything else reduces my dl to about 1/3 my connection speed. ALLEN

Ive tried everything you can think of from static ip to reducing dl and ul settings, the only setting I can make the connection work over 400mb/s is the one I have anything else reduces my dl to about 1/3 my connection speed. ALLEN

i have to use 4 half open connections on vista SP1 and XPSP3, because i keep getting event ID errors related to it in the system event logs. it slows down the startup, but at least my entire system speeds arent throttled.